Fuego volcano erupts in Guatemala forcing more than 33.000 to evacuate

A volcano has erupted in Guatemala, hurling thick clouds of ash nearly two miles (three kilometres) high, spewing rivers of lava down its flanks and prompting evacuation orders for more than 33,000 people from surrounding communities.

Guatemala's head of emergency evacuations, Sergio Cabañas, said the evacuees were ordered to leave 17 villages around the Volcán del Fuego, which sits about six miles south-west of city of Antigua, home to 45,000 people. The ash was blowing south-southeast and authorities said the tourist centre of the country was not currently in danger, although they expected the eruption to last for at least 12 more hours.

"A paroxysm of an eruption is taking place, a great volcanic eruption, with strong explosions and columns of ash," said Gustavo Chicna, a volcanologist with the National Institute of Seismology, Vulcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology.

He said extremely hot gases were also rolling down the sides of the volcano, which was almost entirely wreathed in ash and smoke. The emergency agency warned that flights through the area could be affected.

There was a red alert, the highest level, south and south-east of the mountain, where, Chicna said, "it's almost in total darkness."

He said ash was landing as far as 50 miles south of the volcano.

Teresa Marroquin, disaster co-ordinator for the Guatemalan Red Cross, said the organisation had set up ten emergency shelters and was sending hygiene kits and water.

"There are lots of respiratory problems and eye problems," she said.Many of those living around the volcano are indigenous Kakchikeles people who live in relatively poor and isolated communities, and authorities said they expected to encounter difficulties in evacuating all the affected people from the area.

Officials in the Mexican state of Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala, said they were monitoring the situation in case winds drove ash toward Mexico.